We made it through to the other side

I can’t believe my last post was Easter. That’s so insane to me, time has absolutely flown by.

And just to put to rest any concerns from that slightly depressing last update, things are in a really good place now. The house is coming along great, and more importantly my mindset around the whole project is in a much healthier spot. Overall I genuinely love this house and I’m so pumped about how it’s turning out. I’m going to include a bunch of photos here and walk through everything that’s happened over the past couple of months.

I’ve realized I really enjoy writing these updates, so I’m going to try to get back into the habit, both for house projects and art projects.

As I write this I’m diving back into my camera roll to piece together everything since Easter. Bear with me, this is definitely going to be a long post.

Non house related side note because I see these photos from the week after Easter, I got the ’84 Spree running. The Bad Egg is out and about. I’ll throw some pictures here at the bottom. The first is from a clay run where I strapped a 25 lb bag of Kentucky Mudworks Brown Bear to the cargo rack. What an awesome morning that was. I took the long way back from my makerspace and rode the windy roads in Shelby Park, saw some deer, and hung out on the overlook with my freshly tuned scooter and bag of clay. I FINALLY threw that clay this morning, three months later. The second photo is the Bad Egg in the aisle of my local Ace Hardware. I didn’t have hardware for the crankcase so I brought it there on a trailer, found what I needed, put the bolts in, and went for a little spin around the block when I got home. Apparently I didn’t tighten them, because by the time I was done they had all rattled out and the case fell off. Back to Ace I went.

At some point I got too sick and tired of showing up to my house and being met with both construction materials stacked outside and a weed and dirt patch for a front lawn. My poor neighbors. I took a few mad dash mornings and full weekend days to absolutely obliterate anything that was growing in that patch. I saw a week of light rain in the forecast and killed myself to get all of the prep done and have sod delivered before what felt like a perfect week of sod weather. Day of sodding comes and I’m absolutely beat, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. I was still certifiably insane at this point in the reno process. After being stood up by a bunch of help I was hoping for, I laid all the sod myself in a day with the sole help of Radiolab providing the perfect working atmosphere. That podcast really does wonders for my productive flow state. So bottom line, I was a shell of a man but I had a beautiful lawn… for a while. Lately it looks almost as bad as before and that’s super disheartening, but I’ll only include a picture of the freshly sodded lawn here. You’ll have to wait until the fall redo to see how bad it’s gotten.

The lawn was done May 16, and two weeks later I was ready for another big project, the laundry room and pantry. I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs how much I hate drywall, so I figured I’d roll the dice on another Facebook Marketplace helper. He came by, took a look, seemed unfazed by the trapezoid shaped walls and curved slanted rafters, and the price was right. It felt worth the experiment, or so I thought. Oh my goodness, what a mess that turned out to be. Three days of work later it looked like a child had screwed a bunch of boards to the studs and finger painted the seams. I had to get rid of that guy, and that wasn’t so easy because he was legitimately unstable. He started messaging me about keeping his name out of my mouth and never telling anyone how bad a job he did, sending photos of other drywall work he’d done and saying I bait and switched him because the framing was so out of square, despite him doing an in person quote. Then he started telling me his family was going to hear about my dishonest dealings, as if I would know who they were. When I demanded my money back he ended up paying me in $30 installments over the next couple of months. Disaster.

But, strong capable girlfriend to the rescue. The next weekend Naomi and I knocked out the whole room and I have to say it really wasn’t that bad. With two people working and music going it flew by and honestly looked great. The following weekend I built pantry shelving and a laundry countertop which, after some TLC, came out really nicely. I did some lazy order of operations corner cutting that screwed me a bit, but really I just wasted my own time and had to do some gymnastics painting a wall I could have painted earlier. The room looks great. All that’s left is to rebuild the windows and the closet.

Next episode began a week after the shelves were in. The goats. The idea was simple. My backyard is truly a jungle, overgrown with invasive species and overcrowded saplings, and you can’t even see the back property line. Rather than break out the chainsaw or rent a bushhog, what could be more fun than hiring some goats to do my bidding and have some cute pets for a while. So I did what I always do when I want weirdly specific advice and posted in the East Nashville Facebook group.

Quick side note, ENFB is the single best local page out there. People are so responsive and there is always so much drama. I’m even going to see the ENFB musical in a few weeks. That’s how much drama there is. They make a play every year out of the group antics. I love it here.

Back to the goats. A few messages and a home visit later, Magic and July were climbing out of the back of an SUV and walking into my backyard. July is the black one and Magic the brown one. I’m getting stressed just typing this, so here are the cliff notes. I had the goats about two weeks. The first week they were eating my pendant lights, standing on the picnic table and eating my string lights, and somehow found and ate a tarp buried under dirt and ivy. Everything except the lush leaves covering the yard. I was frustrated, but their owner told me to be patient and that they were probably just adjusting.

The next week they started escaping. They weaseled through a gap where the electric fence ended and the chain link began. Retrieved goats. Patched hole. Ate back ivy and found another hole. Retrieved goats. Chicken wire over the hole. Climbed stairs and jumped onto the electric fence and over. Retrieved goats. Tightened perimeter. Then they rammed through the electric fence. I did not know that was something I needed to prepare for. For about five days straight I was leaving work early, getting woken up by neighbors, or surveying damage in the morning. One broke his collar and lost his AirTag, which nearly gave me a heart attack before we found him eight doors down destroying a neighbor’s lilies. My neighbors are saints. They did not sign up to corral livestock or have their porch plants turned into a buffet. I have Ring footage of the goats demolishing planters. I felt awful and had to throw in the towel. It wasn’t fair to my neighbors and the goats were causing more stress than anything else. They barely made a dent in the yard. So the goat chapter closed as quickly as it opened, but it was a very exciting and stressful part of the process.

After the goats I needed a win, so I did a small project I’d been looking forward to. I have a few boxes of Italian terrazzo tiles and a big cracked section of my walkway. I smashed the tiles and made a mosaic in the broken section, and I’m so happy with how it came out. It’s a sweet little pop of color and was a fun one day project for Naomi and me.

A couple weekends later I was hosting friends for a music festival, and it was a true test. Six guys in the house and everything went smoothly. Everyone was comfortable and I got to enjoy the location of my home as we walked everywhere all weekend. It was an awesome weekend for a lot of reasons, but from the house perspective it felt really good to host and actually enjoy the space.

Project wise I’ve slowed down. I’m very comfortable, so it’s harder to motivate myself to get stressed again. Lately I’ve just been doing fun things. I got a smoker and made pulled pork and chicken wings with my friend Justin. It was more hands on than I expected, but for my first time with an offset smoker I’m happy with how it came out. I’m finally finding places for plants in the house, and grow lights are new to me but wow, they’re like a button that just makes new leaves. My plants are happy without them, but they don’t grow nearly as aggressively. When I’m happy with their size I can just put the lights away and they won’t outgrow their space. Last weekend I started making plant ID markers with river rocks from Ernie’s Boondocks drainage bed. And the last couple days I’m finally throwing on the wheel again. It’s been sitting in the guest bedroom the whole time but I just couldn’t get myself to do it for a while.

Next steps are what’s needed to get a roommate this fall. I’m sick of paying the whole mortgage, even though I love living alone. Over the next couple months I need to do more windows, trim out the bathroom door so it can finally lock, handle some foundation work scheduled for the 22nd, baseboards and window trim, build the guest room and laundry room closets, replace the attic ladder, and probably do something about the lawn again. It sounds like a lot, but I think it’s downhill from here. I’m really excited about where things are at, and thanks to everyone who’s helped along the way.